Not as Lucky
by Archenic
Summary: Roma liked to think she had a level head, and she looked like somebody who should-but she didn't, and that was just one of the many inescapable truths about her life.


**After I wrote my little story about Fox last year, I figured there was nothing else stopping me from writing more pointless babble about minor delinquent characters, and that's why this is here. Also, there ought to be a tag for Roma on this damn website, she's got a last name and everything.**

* * *

Roma liked to think she had a level head, and she looked like somebody who should-but she didn't, and that was just one of the many inescapable truths about her life. She had no definable skills and she wasn't particularly bold or smart or any of those other traits that would have made her a leader in the eyes of anyone. But she looked like one when she stood tall enough.

Sure, she was great at disappointing her poor parents, but success was a relative thing on the Ark anyway. It wasn't like there was any real upward mobility-you simply are or you aren't. And she wasn't. In space, it was a lot easier to accept that (and the fact that she was probably going to be dead within the year), but the whiplash of instead being shoved in a dropship and thrown onto the ground threw that perspective on its head.

Obviously she could still die here on earth, oftentimes a lot quicker and far more violent than before, as she was learning. On her worst days, Roma wondered if it would have been easier if they had just floated her and called it a goddamn day. But then she remembered the alternative was the indignity of having to sit in trial, passive in the face of her quickly fleeting life as they debated the few merits of her existence. _They'd just look for any reason at all to float you._

It was all a joke anyway. She wasn't an idiot, she knew everything was already determined-by your usefulness, those you knew, or who you were. The actual severity of the crime meant relatively little. If your position already deemed you expendable-then your time in the Skybox was just the Council's way of humoring you. Her own parents were the ones who told her so. Maybe that's why they reacted the way she did upon learning she'd been arrested.

They weren't even pissed off. Just...resigned. Like they expected this. It had been the last time she'd seen them.

* * *

Maybe her parents were two of the glimmering flashes of light released from the Ark in the dead of night that most of the others thought were so beautiful. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. That night, she just swallowed the lump in her throat, surprised to find that she had one at all.

Roma glanced at Bellamy, but he was too caught up in what was going on above them to even see her, and prior to that-the whereabouts of his missing sister. She was well aware of the part he played, because he'd told her earlier when he had been gripped with fear over the impending guilt of what would happen if the Ark didn't see their signal. And even if he hadn't, she'd seen Clarke and Bellamy whispering to one another when they had both assumed everyone else was too busy marveling at the sky to notice. _I guess this is what death on the Ark looks like from down here._ If she had been floated, she would have been a sparkling speck in the sky too.

 _He's the one keeping you from seeing your parents again_ , she thought for the briefest moment before quickly deciding none of this had changed her opinion of Bellamy. In some twisted way, it all made her glad only if to know he cared enough to confide in her. He trusted her. Something in her wanted him to keep doing that.

 _We still wanted the best for you, even though it was always out of our hands._ It was their fault for even bothering to think that in the first place.

* * *

Roma wished she had something to see her reflection in other than a puddle or the blade of a knife. It bothered her that everyone else could see her clearly, but whenever she looked at herself, all she saw was a distorted image. She wanted to see her bony, hollowed out visage-the dark circles under her eyes and the dirt on her face. Shampoo wouldn't have gone far in fixing any of that.

Bree slept next to her soundly, as she did every night-unburdened because she had no clue what would happen if the signal flares were to fail. And if Roma had tried to tell her, she probably would have just blocked her ears as tightly as she could and gone back to sleep. She couldn't see Bree in the dark, but she could always feel her warmth, and that was how Roma knew she was there. But Bellamy wasn't there-she could feel that absence too, and tried not to care.

Roma could never live with the weight of so many deaths on her head, and she was glad she wouldn't have to. Maybe that was why she threw her lot in with Bellamy. With him by her side there was no room to doubt what she was. The Ark said she was a criminal, her fellow delinquents called her an asshole, and her parents thought she was a failure. None of those qualities were particularly good things to have, but she knew what she was and had no questions to ask or lies to tell herself.

It was far easier to accept those things when she was lying in the dark pondering them until sleep finally decided to take her, but not so much when she was actually out trying to live her life. It was easy with Bellamy, she didn't have to arm her tongue with sarcastic barbs or be anything she wasn't-because he was there and he gave everyone something to do, even if it turns out it wasn't the right thing in the end.

She wasn't a leader, and for Bellamy the role didn't always fit him either-and when it didn't he suffered deeply for it. Roma was acutely aware of this and felt bad for him, but it at this point it felt worthless to bother telling him so. She was observant, at least.

Roma didn't care much for Clarke and Bellamy's power struggles, frequent as they were. It was hard to ignore for sure, but Roma knew who she'd follow into the gates of hell and conversely, who she'd tell to go to hell, and she figured she didn't really need to prove that with words when her actions made her allegiance so obvious. So she stayed out of it.

* * *

Which was probably why she was now preparing to stare down death's door, to go looking for a girl she never really gave much of a damn about to begin with. But she gave a damn about Bellamy, and he needed her help. Even though it seemed that every single time they decided to go beyond the borders of camp, somebody ended up dead. _I guess I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope it won't be my turn._

Roma felt hesitant when they had laid down the weapons, wondering first which one to take and second, that the whole concept of her using it at all was ridiculous. She gripped the handle of the makeshift sword and it felt like it wasn't really there, even though the heaviness of it in her hand was impossible to ignore. She wouldn't know how to swing this thing properly if she tried. If anyone other than Bellamy had asked her to come on this suicide mission, she would have spit right in their fucking face.

She followed behind him until Bree had grabbed her arm and yanked her out of line, hissing, _"Hey, idiot-don't go out there,"_ and she'd shrugged her off and responded without a second thought, _"Hey, idiot-I'll be fine, Bellamy is with us."_ She was too tall to stand behind anyone else but him.

* * *

Roma couldn't ever recall anyone saying that you could only be brave or stupid, like they were mutually exclusive concepts. Jasper proved it wasn't. She wanted to call him a fool for coming out here when he should be dead, but then again, what the hell was she doing out here?

 _"You know, you're the one other person coming out here for Octavia."_ Roma said.

 _"Aren't we all out here because of Octavia?"_ Jasper mumbled, before grabbing onto the rope and heading down the incline.

 _"No."_ She said, but he was already too far down to hear her response. He'd managed to survive getting a spear through the chest and was still willing to go out and do this again. Roma hoped she'd be that lucky.

She should have figured that a forest path decorated with skeletons would have been a good time to decide to turn right the fuck back around, but she kept quiet and kept walking even as their party began to dwindle.

* * *

By morning there were six, including herself. Roma didn't know what had happened to those that had left, if they had been picked off or had made it back safely, but she knew Bellamy would have kept going even if he had been alone. She felt more vulnerable every time someone turned around.

Roma looked behind her, so used to seeing Mbege that it took her a moment to register that he was no longer there. He had literally been right behind her, and now he was gone. _He had been here the whole damn time, there's no way he'd go back now without telling anyone he's out._

"Where's John?" She didn't have to bother saying Mbege now that the number of people named 'John' had decreased to one. Nobody talked about Murphy anymore, Bellamy didn't have to tell them not to. They just knew.

No sooner than she'd said that, his body dropped onto the ground with a deep cut across his throat. _Well, now the amount of 'John's' has gone to zero,_ she almost said. It was a morbid first thought upon seeing the now lifeless body of someone she'd known, but it was all she could think of to try and force down the rising terror she now felt.

* * *

In lock-up, Pike had tried to teach them how to survive on earth. Even if she'd know she was going to the ground at that point, who the hell was he? He'd never been on earth before, so as far as she was concerned he was no different from them...Even though she would admit the fire was a neat trick. Not as big as the one she had watched Murphy set, but still.

She made sure to spend most of her time in that room glaring bitterly, so everyone knew exactly how much she hated them and this whole damn thing-but as the days went on, Pike seemed to grow much more intense and desperate, so much that sometimes it had been hard not to listen to him. One day, she found herself actually anticipating the answer to what the 'key' to survival on earth was.

When Octavia (known to most back then as just 'that girl under the floor') had answered 'not dying' she could only bring her head to her hand, cradling her forehead into her palm. _Everyone here is a fucking idiot._ At least she didn't have to share her cell with anyone else. Here, she was stuffed between people, forced to sit where they told her and not even lucky enough to get a spot on the end. Being grabbed and elbowed and pushed around, feeling like (how she assumes) cattle from before the war felt before being led to slaughter.

 _Keep fighting at all costs._ That was the answer, a cheap one at that. Roma felt cheated for bothering to care.

* * *

That claustrophobic feeling returned to her in the moment, even though she was out in the open now. She didn't expect to lose faith in Bellamy, but right now there were only two things she could trust and that was her feet and the hot fear coursing through her veins telling her only one thing-run. Diggs was in front of her, and now he was gone. His maroon colored jacket had been her beacon, the thing she had been following and now he was still, impaled. The blood leaking from his mouth felt fake to her, like it was just paint. But her fear was real. Without Diggs to follow, every tree looked the same no matter where she ran. She screamed, but she couldn't even hear herself or anyone else yelling after her.

Others were brave, or knew how to keep a level head, to panic quietly, or freeze. Roma screamed and she ran, with no regard to where she was running-that was just how she did things. But it would get her killed out here, and she didn't really take that into account until she was pinned to a tree, choking on her own blood. And by then, it was far too late to change her unfortunate behavior patterns.

The last thing she saw wasn't darkness; she didn't have the dignity of dying with her eyes shut-but it was the vast and empty forest that seem to stretch on in front of her forever.

* * *

 **I find it sad that Bellamy couldn't even tell Roma's parents she died and instead Miller had to do it. :/**


End file.
